


Christmas Eve Will Find Me (Where the Lovelight Gleams)

by Love_andbalance



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ben Solo Wants to Take Care of Her, F/M, Fake Dating, HEA, Happy Ending, Mild Angst, Modern Christmas au, Rey Needs A Hug, Reylo - Freeform, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, maximum fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28226541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Love_andbalance/pseuds/Love_andbalance
Summary: Based on a prompt by @someonesbh on Twitter-Christmas Eve. Ben stares at the train that he and his now ex were supposed to be departing on. A noise behind him turns his head, a beautiful girl yelling at the SOLD OUT ticket booth. He looks at the 2 tickets in his hand and back at the girl. "Fuck it," he says, walking up to her.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 173
Kudos: 549





	1. Sold Out

Ben Solo was going home for Christmas.

It was the first time in years and something that he wouldn’t have been happy about under even the best of circumstances. The relationships with his parents and his ridiculously overbearing uncle were unpleasant at best and spending several days in the childhood home that was crowded with bad memories and resentment was something he had actively avoided for over a decade. 

He stood on a snowy platform, waiting with two tickets in his hand and an overwhelming feeling of anger at the universe’s cruel twists of fate for the train that was supposed to take him north. He was supposed to be making this journey with his fiancée at his side, but Bazine had decided that Christmas would be much better spent somewhere tropical with the man she’d left him for. 

She’d never been all that enthusiastic about Ben or their life together so maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d rather break off an engagement than endure an awkward dinner with the family he had never bothered to introduce her to.

Hell, he didn’t think he’d even bothered to tell his mother Bazine’s name when he’d finally given in and told her that he had a fiancée, not that Leia had bothered to ask. She didn’t care at all about the details, just that he might have finally found someone to keep him in line and make him come home periodically.

She hadn’t even asked if Bazine was his soulmate. 

What kind of mother didn’t ask if her son’s fiancée was his soulmate?

Even after all these years her attitude still got under his skin. Did she not care about him now any more than she had when he was younger? Or had Leia just assumed that he wouldn’t be marrying Bazine otherwise?

Even Ben had to admit that was a possibility. Maybe her years with Han had caused her to forget that most people didn’t get so lucky. Ben had never been lucky so the idea that he might have actually met his soulmate, when so many far better people went their whole lives having never met theirs, was a laughable one as far as he was concerned.

At least, it  _ would be _ laughable if he weren’t standing alone on a crowded train platform before dawn on the day of Christmas Eve, watching as the snow drifts inched higher up off the concrete. The twinkling of holiday lights glinted off the snow, the cheerful pattern making him even more sullen as the cold tried and failed to seep in through the thick fabric of his expensive winter coat.

Snoke was a bastard, but at least he paid well.

A loud voice rose over the soft murmur of conversation around him, high pitched and just a shade shy of hysterical. He didn’t want to turn with the crowd, to stare at someone who was clearly having a bad start to their day, but the urge was compulsive and impossible to resist.

He promised himself a short glance to satisfy his curiosity, but he found himself staring when he followed the sound to its source and found a young woman at the ticket booth. Her hair was twisted up in an odd three bunned style and the tattered edges of a worn brown coat fluttered around slender hands as she waved them for emphasis. He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the tears in her voice as she begged the ticket agent to check again for an available ticket. The man in the booth, tired and unmoved, simply tapped the sign taped to the glass.

_ Sold Out _

Ben ran a gloved hand over his face, considering his options. It wasn’t like him to interfere. He preferred to mind his own business, as he had always wanted others to mind theirs, but there was something about the plea in her voice, the desperate tiredness that she was steadfastly ignoring that drew him in.

“Fuck it,” he muttered, turning away from the tracks and pushing his way to the back of the crowd. The few people that looked like they might want to object to his shoving quickly changed their minds when they got a good look at his height and the broad width of his shoulders. He knew he had a harsh face, all sharp planes and aggressive angles, framed by ink black hair that was made even more threatening in contrast to the unusual paleness of his skin.

People moved for Ben Solo, even when he wasn’t at work with the reputation he had earned as Kylo Ren and Snoke’s ruthlessness behind him.

“I have to leave this morning,  _ now _ ” the woman was saying as he approached the booth. “I don’t care which train it is or where it’s going.”

“They’re all sold out, ma’am,” the man repeated, huffing in frustration. “Maybe you could try the bus?”

“The bus station is all the way across town!”

“Excuse me,” Ben said, grimacing when she jumped at the sound of his voice so close behind her. He hesitated when she spun around to face him, pink lips slightly parted in surprise. She had a scattering of freckles over a pert nose and eyes that were red rimmed and swimming with tears.

She was probably going to think he was a creep he realized belatedly when she took a quick step back, glancing over her shoulder at the man in the ticket booth to make sure he was still there.

“I, uh…” Ben stammered, glaring back at the ticket man who was looking at him with thinly veiled hostile suspicion. “I heard you were having a hard time getting a ticket.”

She sniffed, her nose cherry red in the cold. “Yeah,” she said, crossing her arms protectively over her middle. She wasn’t wearing any gloves and it made him irrationally angry seeing how red and chaffed her fingers were.

“I have an extra,” he blurted out swiftly.

“What?”

“An extra ticket,” he explained. “My fiancée was supposed to travel with me but… Well, she’s my ex fiancée now but I guess that doesn’t matter…”

“You’re offering me a ticket?” she asked suspiciously, looking disbelievingly at his coat and thick leather gloves.

“Yes,” he said, pulling both tickets from his pocket and holding them up into the light so that she could see that he was telling her the truth.

She frowned, her brows drowning together in concern. “Look, I don’t know how much of a profit you’re hoping to make here but I can barely afford the cheapest ticket they sell and I certainly can’t afford to pay half of a private coach.”

“Oh,” he said, flustered and ashamed that he had caused the embarrassed flush on her cheeks. “I wasn’t going to ask for money.”

Her eyes flashed, bright fury naked on her face as she closed the distance between them and stabbed her finger into his chest. “I’m not going to whore myself out to you for a train ticket, so you can just go straight to hell,” she snarled, rocking up on the balls of her feet so that she was viciously whispering each word directly into his face.

“No,” he sputtered, holding his hands up and away from his body to show her that he meant her no harm. “I wasn’t asking for sex! I just already have the ticket and it’s going to go to waste if no one takes it. I have one, you need one. I was  _ giving _ it to you.”

The fight went out of her immediately and she curled in on herself, shrinking herself down as she stepped back.

“Oh,” she said, setting her small white teeth against the plump curve of her bottom lip. “I’m sorry, it’s just…”

“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he cut in quickly. “I probably would have thought the same thing if I was you.”

They both turned as the piercing echo of a train whistle cut through the night air and she looked back at him, hesitating and fidgeting with a hole in her jacket. “If you’ve changed your mind,” she began, “I understand.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head and offering her a tentative smile and holding out the ticket. “I didn’t change my mind.”

She took it from him with shaking pink fingers and he tugged off his gloves. “Put these on,” he urged gruffly, waiting for her to put the ticket into her own pocket and then pulling them onto her hands, careful not to touch her in case he made her even more uncomfortable and frowning at how much extra room there was in the fingers. “You probably won’t be able to carry your bags like this so let me…”

“I don’t have any bags,” she said, curling her hands inside his gloves and looking away. He caught another glimmer of tears and decided not to press her on the issue. Not now, not until he got her safely onto the train.

“Okay,” he said simply and she sighed, clearly relieved that he didn’t intend to pressure her about why she was so hellbent on taking a train to anywhere else but here with no bags packed and holes in her scruffy winter coat.

Neither of them spoke until they boarded the train, the last ones on since they had been standing so far toward the back of the platform, and she hummed happily as they stepped inside the warm interior and the doors closed behind them. He wasn’t sure if it was the heat or the realization that she was truly on her way to somewhere else that made her so happy but the contented noise she made was enough to put a smile on his face.

“We’re this way, I think,” he said, leading her down the corridor until he found the private compartment whose number matched their tickets. It wasn’t a large space, but it was better by far than being crammed into an airplane seat like sardines in a can and he dropped into his seat and watched as she settled hesitantly across from him, folding her hands primly in her lap. 

She was still wearing his overly large gloves.

The seconds ticked by in silence and Ben realized belatedly that they would be stuck in this small space together for hours. They weren’t due to reach their destination until lunchtime and the sky hadn’t even begun to gray yet with the coming dawn- a quick glance at his watch told him it was only five am and the pervasive darkness outside the windows would linger for a while longer.

He was going to have to make conversation with her, something he had never been comfortable doing with strangers and especially not the prickly kind with pretty eyes and mysterious lives.

She jumped slightly when he cleared his throat and his fingers itched with the unexpected urge to comfort her, to soothe whatever problems had driven her here. 

It should have been unwelcome, considering his recent split with Bazine, but he found that he cared very little about his ex-fiancée when this stranger was sitting across from him. 

“I never caught your name,” he said quietly, careful to not startle her again. “I’m Ben… Ben Solo.”

It felt strange to give her the name he’d been born with after so many years, but he supposed he’d better get used to it before he went home. His mother was unlikely to call him Kylo, no matter his protests and, for reasons he didn’t want to look at too deeply, he didn’t want this woman calling him that, either.

She twisted her hands in her lap, the leather of his gloves bending easily around her slender fingers. “I’m Rey,” she said. “Just Rey.”

Silence descended again, leaving his mind reeling for something to say, a safe topic of discussion so he wouldn’t give in to the urge to ask her why she was running away.

“I think breakfast should be served soon,” he said quickly, at the same time that she said, “So, where are you traveling to this Christmas?”

They looked at each other in surprise then laughed at the awkwardness of their forced confinement.

“You go first,” she said, still beaming at him with a wide and contagious smile.

“I was just saying that I think breakfast should be available soon. I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten already.”

She shook her head, shifting uncomfortably. “No, but I’m not terribly hungry.”

Her stomach rumbled lightly, and he nodded. “Well, you could always come with me to the dining car anyway. The meal came with the ticket so it would be a shame if you didn’t take at least a few bites.”

She bit her lip again, looking at his face and then back down at her lap.

“And you?” he prompted. “What were you going to say?”

“I was asking where you were going this Christmas?”

“Home,” he said with a sigh. “Seeing my parents.”

Her face lit up, illuminated from within. “Oh, how lovely! Do you go every year?”

He laughed, dark and bitter. “No. I haven’t been in years. This is the first time in…maybe ten years?... that I was even speaking to my parents at Christmas.”

The happy light left her eyes. “Oh,” she muttered. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said with a shrug. “We haven’t really gotten along. Sometimes it’s better to be alone, you know?”

“No,” she sighed. “I don’t know.”

He felt like he was making a mess of this conversation, that she was disappointed in him for some reason that he couldn’t quite figure out. “What about you? Are you not seeing family for Christmas?”

She turned her face away, looking out the window as the train finally pulled away from the station and began to pick up speed. “I grew up in the foster care system. I don’t have a real family.”

“I’m such an ass,” he said, wiping a hand over his face as he realized how callous his words must have sounded to someone that had never had the option to choose solitude, having it thrust upon them instead. “I’m sorry…I didn’t know.”

“No one does,” she said with a shrug. “I’m used to it. Everyone complains about the holidays and having to spend time with their families.”

That much was true, but not everyone had the misfortune of doing it directly to someone that would have loved to experience the dysfunction that he had always despised. He opened his mouth and then closed it again when his mind refused to supply the right words, or any words at all, to fill the awkward silence between them.

She seemed content with the quiet, her face turned to watch the sights of the city fade away to scattered houses with faint lights illuminating their space in the darkness and then nothing but snow-covered trees as the sun finally began to rise in the sky.

The light of day was less forgiving than the soft illumination of the train’s yellow glow and he frowned as he realized how frayed her coat really was. He couldn’t see much of the rest of her clothes but the boots she wore were nearly as worn as the coat and there was motor oil beneath her nails and dark circles under her eyes. He’d politely ignored several more rumbles of her stomach, eyeing his watch subtly each time and counting down minutes until the dining car would be open.

He’d asked about it specifically when they had come around to check their tickets, while Rey was distracted fishing hers out of her pocket.

He didn’t remember having ever felt this surge of protective concern with anyone else in his life, not even Bazine, but Bazine had been utterly polished, verging on spoiled. She’d never needed him- she’d merely allowed him to exist in her sphere for as long as it suited her.

Nobody had ever needed him, and Ben was beginning to realize that maybe this girl did and that maybe, just maybe, he liked it. It might be nice to have someone that might view his presence as a thing to be desired and not simply tolerated.

When his watch finally showed the time as 7:25 he stood up and her eyes, hazel in the light from the window, followed him as he moved toward the door.

“Breakfast?” he asked, pausing with his hand on the door handle. The train rumbled gently beneath his feet as she stared at him cautiously, her teeth wrapped around her bottom lip. “I’d rather not go alone,” he encouraged, holding out a hand and hoping to tempt her.

She reached for him tentatively, and he guided her out of the compartment and down the corridor with her hand in his, still wearing the oversized gloves that she hadn’t taken off since the platform.

He wondered if her hands were still cold.

She followed him into the dining car, glancing around at the small tables with white tablecloths and little red flowers in crystal vases. The air was fragrant with the smell of breakfast pastries and bacon, all overlaid with the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee and he sent up a quick and fervent prayer that her hunger would win out over her pride as they settled down at a table.

“You want coffee?” he asked.

She picked up the menu and nodded. “Coffee with sugar and lots of cream,” she said absently, looking over the menu selections like her entire future depended on choosing the right option. “There’s no prices on anything,” she muttered, and he thought he caught a glimmer of tears in her eyes before she blinked them away.

“It comes with the ticket,” he reminded her. “You can have as much as you want. I’m starving, personally, so I’m gonna get the biggest breakfast they have. Maybe even a hot chocolate once I finish my coffee.”

“Hot chocolate?”

“Mmm hmm,” he said, tapping the menu to show her. “With extra whipped cream.”

She bit her lip again, peeking up at him from under her lashes, but when the waitress came to take their order she asked for the same thing as him and he smiled.

She wouldn’t go hungry as long as he was with her.

They lapsed back into silence again as they waited for their food until she pinned him with a direct gaze and asked, “Why’d you give me that ticket?”

He shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee. “My fiancée was supposed to go with me, meet my family. She ditched me a few days ago.” Her brow creased, a lovely line forming as he explained. “She’s in the tropics somewhere with her new boyfriend.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but he shook his head.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I’m not, at least, not really. It hurt my pride more than anything else.”

“You didn’t love her? She wasn’t your soulmate?”

“She definitely wasn’t my soulmate,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think either of us really loved the other, we were just looking for someone to fill the empty spaces. It looked presentable, so why not?”

“That’s sad,” she said, twirling the spoon in her coffee, “but even if you had an extra ticket, why give it to a stranger instead of inviting a friend along or something?”

“I work a lot,” he said. “It doesn’t leave a lot of time for friendships.”

“So, you don’t talk to your family and you have no friends? Just this fiancée and she left you a few days before Christmas?”

“Yep,” he agreed. “And then I saw you and it seemed like you needed to get out of there so…”

She sighed, picking at the side of her cup with her fingernail. “Thanks,” she said. “I just couldn’t take another day in that town.”

“Can I ask what happened?”

“Plutt happened,” she darkly, as though that would make everything clear. She must have read the puzzlement on his face because she laughed softly, the sound of it warm and comforting. “He used to be my foster parent and I stayed on working at his garage because I didn’t have anything else to do once I aged out.”

“He wasn’t good to you?”

She shook her head. “He took everything he could out of my paycheck. I worked eighty hours a week and couldn’t put food on the table.”

“Plutt, huh?” He filed the name away to deal with later. Quite a few people in Jakku owed favors to Snoke and the First Order. “So, where are you planning on going? The train will take you as far as Chandrila. Do you have a plan once we get there?”

She winced. “Not really, but people work on cars everywhere, right? I’m sure I can find a job.”

He was spared from having to answer that immediately by the arrival of their food. She was at least as hungry as he had estimated her to be, digging into the mountain of eggs and breakfast meats and pastries like she hadn’t eaten in days.

She probably hadn’t.

He was a big man and people had always commented on the size of his appetite, but she finished before him and ate the last of his pancakes. When she finished there was syrup on the tip of her nose and he was certain that he’d never seen anything as endearing in his life.

“So, I was thinking,” he said, watching in amazement as she sipped her hot chocolate. She was already eyeing his cup, and he knew she’d end up with most of that as well.

“Yeah?”

“You should come with me to my parents’ house for Christmas.”

“What?”

“It would benefit both of us,” he explained, resisting the urge to wipe the whipped cream of her lip. “I wouldn’t have to tell my parents that my fiancée dumped me, and you would have a place to go when we get to Chandrila. Mostly everywhere will be closed for a few days due to the holidays and it will be tough finding a job until the businesses open back up.”

She frowned, and he knew she hadn’t considered that.

“You want me to pretend to be Bazine?”

“No, I want you to be Rey and just pretend that you like me for a few days,” he said. “They never asked who my fiancée was. They didn’t know her name or anything else about her.”

“I don’t know,” she hedged. “You’ve already done so much…”

“We won’t get there for a few hours,” he said, pushing his cup of hot chocolate across the table. “You can take a nap and think it over.”

“Okay,” she breathed, picking up his cup and draining the last of its contents.

She followed him back to their compartment, hands tucked into her pockets this time, and curled up next to the window. She was asleep in minutes and he tucked one of the blankets stored in the overhead bins around her carefully, before settling back into his seat to watch her sleep.

Now that she’d eaten, her body seemed to need rest more than anything else and the train’s gentle swaying as they swept down the track did nothing to disturb her.

He didn’t wake her until they were nearly to Chandrila, and even then he hated having to do it. He shook her shoulder as gently as possible, the blanket soft under his fingers but not plush enough to disguise the way her bones poked at her skin.

If he ever got his hands on Plutt…

“Rey,” he murmured, careful to wake her slowly and as gently as possible. “It’s time to wake up. We’re almost there.”

She mumbled in her sleep, but she opened her eyes, looking directly up at him as he hovered over her. She startled a bit, before she looked around and remembered where she was and how she had gotten there, then she smiled.

“Ben,” she said quietly, and his name had never sounded more beautiful than it did on her tongue.

“We’re almost there,” he repeated, stepping back before he made a mistake and leaned forward into the soft curve of her mouth. She hadn’t done anything to indicate that she was interested in anything more than a ticket out of town and a meal.

Even if she had, it felt too much like taking advantage of her circumstances.

“Right,” she said, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “I slept for a long time.”

“Only a few hours,” he said, glancing at his watch. It was nearly lunchtime. Whatever she decided about Christmas, he hoped she’d let him feed her again.

“That’s a long time for me,” she said, stretching her arms over her head and sighing contentedly. The circles under her eyes were gone and the combination of food and sleep had put a healthy pink flush on her cheeks beneath the scattering of freckles.

He looked away.

“I’ll go with you,” she said without preamble. “To your parents.”

He looked back at her, found her sitting with her elbow on the armrest and her chin on her fist, watching him.

“Really?”

“Mmm hmm,” she hummed, nodding. “I’ve never had a real family Christmas.”

“Well, it’s not like my family is something out of a Hallmark movie but there will be a tree and food.”

“Presents?”

“Definitely,” he agreed. “My mom loves buying gifts.”

“I’ve never gotten a Christmas gift before,” she mused, breaking his heart and leaving the pieces scattered across the floor of the train. “Or given one.”

“We’ll stop on the way to their house,” he said, realizing that he hadn’t even thought about gifts. “Buy something for everyone. Mom and Dad, Uncle Chewie and his wife. Even Uncle Luke.”

“You don’t like your uncle?”

“No one likes my uncle.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling this time.

“We’ll need to get you a few things, too,” he continued, rubbing his hand over his face. “If you had left the city with me as my fiancée, you would have had bags packed.”

She looked at him skeptically. “You’re going to buy me clothes?”

“Yep. Clothes, shoes, luggage…a new winter coat.”

“I can’t let you do that,” she said firmly, wrapping her arms around the hideous brown jacket she was wearing.

“It would be for me,” he lied. “If my mom thought I let you run around in winter without a decent coat, she’d kick my ass.”

She shook her head again, but her arms relaxed on the coat. “I guess that makes sense,” she admitted grudgingly, eyes locked onto the thick coat on the back of his seat. “How much did that one cost you, anyway?”

“Almost seven hundred dollars,” he said smoothly. “Real goose down.”

“Oh,” she said, plucking at the loose strings around the hole in her own coat. “Well, that’s just…”

“I’m buying you one,” he interrupted. “Red maybe? No, blue. It’ll match your eyes.”

She huffed, clearly both amused and exasperated. “You can’t buy me a seven-hundred-dollar coat.”

“Sure, I can,” he argued with a smile. “I have plenty of money and a judgmental mother. Besides, your hands were cold when I met you, so I’m going to buy you gloves and boots and scarves, too.”

She laughed, throwing her hands up in a confused half-hearted protest. “How long are we going to be at your parents’ house? I don’t need all of that.”

He shrugged. “A few days,” he said, leaning out the window as the train started slowing down. “We’ll be there in a few minutes, so let’s get ready. We need to get all of our shopping done before the stores close for Christmas Eve.”

She didn’t object when he led her off the train, his hand resting on the small of her back, or when he insisted that she get into the warm interior of the car he’d rented, a black luxury sedan with remote start that had the heater running and the seats heating before she’d even opened the door, while he loaded his bags into the trunk.

He remembered more of the streets of Chandrila than he’d expected and it only took him a few minutes to find the downtown area and park the car. He rushed her into the nearest café and fed her a bowl of soup with warm crusty bread and hot tea and then bustled her along into the clothing and gift shops that lined the snow-covered streets.

He didn’t give her time to look at the price tags on the items she picked, piling everything she looked at on his arm until they had so many bags that they had to make a return trip to the car to pile it into the trunk before they could finish buying the gifts for his family.

“Ben,” she protested. “This is insane- Do you even know how much money you’ve spent today?”

“No,” he said, unable to focus on anything but her, standing on the sidewalk in her new blue jacket. She was warm enough now with a black scarf wrapped around her neck and black leather gloves that fit her fingers properly. Black winter boots crunched the snow under foot as she shifted her weight to stare at him incredulously.

“You bought me a whole wardrobe of clothes! Shirts, pants, dresses, shoes- I lost track at the boutique with the pink sign but I'm almost certain that the sales lady put in pajamas and lingerie.”

“You needed clothes,” he reminded her.

“I’m a mechanic,” she said, pursing her lips. “What am I going to do with all these fancy clothes?”

He tore his gaze away from her mouth. “Maybe you don’t have to be a mechanic,” he said, reaching for her hand and tugging her along behind him as he headed back to the car with Leia’s gift under his arm. “My mother knows everyone in this city, she can probably find you a better job. Something with a good salary and health benefits.”

“Ben,” she said. “I’m not going to ask your mom for a job. I’m supposed to be your fiancée, remember? You don’t even live here.”

“We’ll tell her that we’re thinking of moving here and she’ll be thrilled. She won’t take the job away once we tell them we aren’t together anymore.”

“This is all too much,” she argued. “She’s never even met me.”

“She’s going to love you,” he promised as he opened the car door for her. She shot him a glance over her shoulder as she settled into the front seat, and there was a sinking feeling in his stomach that warned him that maybe his mother wouldn’t be the only one.


	2. Family Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to increase the chapter count because this is (predictably) longer than I anticipated. Last chapter coming tomorrow!

She was biting her lip again.

It was a habit that she probably didn’t even know she had, a small tell that told him she was nervous or confused or overwhelmed. Right now, if he had to guess, he would have said it was a combination of all three.

He’d parked the car in his parents’ driveway, left the engine running while she sat in the passenger seat in her pretty blue coat and looked at the house through the front windshield. She had one hand on the seatbelt, finger on the release, but she hadn’t made a move to unclasp it.

“Are you okay?” he asked after several moments of waiting for her to move or speak.

“Yeah,” she mumbled, but she still didn’t move. “You grew up _ here _ ?”

He looked at the big white house with its columns and large windows. The front door had been painted a surprising red since he’d last seen it, but beyond that, not much had changed. “Yep,” he acknowledged, pointing to the set of windows on the far right of the second floor. “That was my bedroom, right over there.”

“Your whole family is rich, aren’t they?”

“Uh…probably,” he told her. “I never thought about it much.” Not as much as he should have, he realized, watching her looking at the house he’d been raised in like it was the queen’s own palace.

“Ben,” she said and her eyes were brimming with tears when she turned to face him, her chest bumping against the still buckled seatbelt. “How am I going to fit in here? I eat my TV dinners with plastic forks.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, pretending to contemplate it for a few seconds. “If they say anything, and they won’t because they have better manners than that, but  _ if they do- _ fuck ‘em. I’ll take you somewhere else and feed you Christmas dinner. I will buy someone’s fully decorated tree and take it with us.”

“Ben,” she wheezed, laughter pushing its way out around the wet sound of her tears. “Be serious.”

He was serious, absolutely certain that he’d do that and more if it got her to stop crying, but he didn’t argue with her, just picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of black gloved knuckles. “You’re gonna have a great Christmas,” he promised. “Let’s go introduce you to my parents and then I’ll show you the bedroom where I experienced all my teenage rebellions.”

“Did you climb down the drainpipe?” she asked with a giggle. “Like in the movies?”

He grinned, unrepentant. “Maybe once or twice.”

“You’ll stay with me?” She looked suddenly small and vulnerable and everything inside him shifted painfully on its axis.

“As long as you need me to,” he promised and she nodded, thumb pressing on the button that would release her seatbelt from the catch.

“Okay,” she agreed, her smile a little wobbly at the edges but brave and determined.

“Wait there,” he told her, opening his own door, and then walking around the car to open hers, too. “It’s a little slippery,” he explained, letting her hold onto the sleeve of his coat as he helped her up the front steps and onto the wide front porch. He glanced down at her, at the thin determined press of her lips before she nodded to signal that she was ready, and then he rang the doorbell.

The house inside erupted into a cacophony of sound- voices competing to be heard over the top of each other and the quick ponding of footsteps.

“Here we go,” he warned her as the door flew open and his mother, shorter than he remembered and with more gray in her hair, launched herself into his arms.

“Benjamin,” she cried, burying her face in his shoulder and sniffling. “You really came.”

He looked over the top of her head, baffled and uncertain of how to respond, to find his father standing in the entryway, watching them with a sad smile. “She’s been pacing the living room since the sun came up,” Han explained. “She was so sure that you’d find an excuse not to come, after all.”

He was flustered, but he wrapped his arms around her anyway, returning her hug until she let go and stepped back, wiping her tears away with a look on her face that made it clear he’d better not mention them.

“So,” she said briskly, smoothing her hair into place and fixing a polite smile on her face. “This must be the fiancée you told me about.”

“Yeah,” he said, embarrassed that he had forgotten for those few brief moments that he wasn’t alone. “Mom, this is Rey and Rey…”

“I’m his mom, Leia,” his mother interrupted. “Come in, come in. Let’s get you out of the cold. You seem pretty warm in this nice jacket, though. I’m glad, if he’d let you out in this weather without some good winter gear, I would have personally kicked his ass for not taking care of you.”

He gave Rey a look that clearly said, “I told you so,” as she giggled and handed over the coat to Leia to hang in the entryway closet.

“This is Han,” Ben said, giving her the next introduction before giving his father an awkward hug.

“You look very much like your son,” she said, smiling at Han and reaching for his hand before being enveloped in a quick hug.

“Nice to meet you, kid, and welcome to the family,” Han said gruffly and there was another round of fresh tears in her eyes when she pulled away.

“Hey,” Ben said softly, his hand on his mother’s arm gentle as he stopped her from leaving the entryway. “Rey’s not really used to all the family Christmas stuff, so please be patient with her, okay? Let’s not dump too much on her at once.”

“It’s okay,” Rey said quickly, but Leia wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her out the room toward the kitchen.

“Your family didn’t do big Christmases?”

“I was raised in foster care,” Rey explained. “I’ve never done Christmas.”

Ben saw his mother’s quick falter, the look she shot over her shoulder at her husband, but her smile was back so quickly that he didn’t think Rey noticed the brief second that it was missing.

“Well, we do enough Christmas to make up for it,” she said easily. “Ben’s Uncle Chewie and Aunt Maz will be here soon and my brother Luke not long after that. We’ll do dinner and gifts, listen to someone sing terribly off key after drinking too much eggnog. The whole package.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Rey said, sitting down at a stool at the kitchen bar and sliding into a seamless conversation with his mother as she started prepping dinner. He blinked and she was chatting with a potato peeler in her hand like she had always been there, as much a part of the tapestry of his family as he had ever been.

He leaned against the counter, arms crossed as he watched her charm his parents and soak up all of the holiday chaos that he had always hated.

Han wandered over not long after and clapped him on the shoulder. “You did good, kid. She’s already won over your mom and she’s begging to have a look at the Falcon. Seems to know her way around cars.”

“She’s a mechanic,” Ben said with a nod. “She  _ was _ a mechanic. Not anymore.”

“Yeah? Why not?”

“Working for some creep,” Ben said, tone clipped and dangerous. “Used to be her foster father and started working her into the ground once she aged out. Wasn’t even paying her enough to feed herself.”

“That right?” Han asked and there was an edge to the question that reminded Ben that Snoke wasn’t the only one with the kind of connections that could make a man disappear. “What’s his name?”

“Plutt,” Ben said easily.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Han said, reaching into the fridge and taking out two beers. He opened one and handed the other to Ben.

“Thanks,” Ben said, watching Rey as she laughed at something his mother had said. Leia was already plying her with cookies and her cheeks were flushed with pleasure.

How could someone be so happy and look so appealing while peeling potatoes?

“I’m glad you’re home,” Han told him, and Ben flicked a surprise glance at him.

“So am I,” he agreed, and it felt true, at least for that moment.

“Go and spend some time with your mom,” Han instructed. “She’s missed you.”

Ben sighed and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Yeah, I can do that.”

Leia smiled when he walked over to the bar to stand beside Rey.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked, watching curiously as his mother’s eyes followed each movement of Rey’s hands as she peeled, scanning the lengths of her fingers and the brief flashes of skin on her wrists as her sweater shifted.

Looking for her soulmate mark, he realized. For most people they showed up on the hands or wrists, though that wasn’t the case for everyone. It was a common belief that the closer to your heart the mark appeared, the stronger your bond with your soulmate was destined to be.

Leia’s was on her forearm, the same with Han.

A rare pairing.

They fought like cats and dogs, but everything about them was directly complementary and they pushed each other to be better than either of them would have been alone. He’d wondered when he was younger if they’d loved each other too much to have enough left over for him.

“No ring?” Leia asked instead and Rey dropped the peeler, scrambling to pick it up off the counter as she bumped his leg urgently with her knee.

“My fault,” Ben said smoothly. “I guessed wrong and had to take it in to be resized.”

Leia clucked her tongue in disapproval. “I would have given you Grandma Padme’s,” she said. “If you had asked.”

“You have a family heirloom ring?” Rey asked. “That’s so sweet.”

“It belonged to Ben’s grandmother,” Leia confirmed. “It’s small and simple but has a long history.”

“That sounds perfect,” Rey mused as she resumed her peeling.

Han wandered back into the kitchen and saved Ben from having to think of something to say or thinking too deeply about why he was so intrigued by the thought of her wearing his grandmother’s wedding band.

“So,” Han said, taking the seat on the other side of Rey. “Tell us a little about yourself. How’d you meet Ben?”

She smiled this time, hands moving surely over her task. “He offered his help getting me out of a sticky situation. A real knight in shining armor.”

“Ben?” Leia said with a laugh. “He must have been smitten already with that pretty face of yours.”

“Maybe,” Rey agreed. “He was certainly the first one to attempt a rescue in all nineteen years I’ve been alive, so I won’t complain.”

_ Nineteen _

He tried not to let his own eyes widen as his mother’s did, covering the way he choked on his beer with a cough that he hoped was convincing.

Han shook his head, holding up a hand at his wife as she opened her mouth. “Don’t you start on them, Leia. You were the same age when we met and Ben’s twenty-nine just like I was.”

Rey’s eyes widened, and she covered her surprise by taking a quick drink from the cup of coffee that Leia had given her. The look she shot him was one of silent acknowledgement, both of them realizing nearly at the same time that there was a ten-year difference in their ages.

Not that it mattered, he reminded himself. This wasn’t real and even if it was…well, it wasn’t like he was looking to take advantage of her age, to boss her around or make her do things she didn’t want to do.

Except eating.

And sleeping.

And going to college, but only if she wanted to.

Maybe he could convince her to do those things if this were real.

“Han’s right,” Leia said, picking up her own coffee and staring at him over the rim of her cup. “There’s nothing wrong with being a little older than her as long as you take care of her right and treat her with respect.”

“I will,” Ben found himself promising. “Every day.”

“Good,” Han said with a grin. “A happy wife makes a happy life and all that.”

Ben grumbled his agreement, sliding a look at Rey and the amused sparkle in her eyes. He  _ had _ been happier since he’d met her on the train than he ever remembered being in the years before her and they were only pretending to be engaged.

Maybe he would have felt this way with Bazine if she’d actually been happy, but he wasn’t sure. He doubted it because she’d never had the honest enjoyment that Rey had, the guileless pleasure over simple things that he took for granted.

He leaned on the counter, beer forgotten, and watched his parents charm her and feed her until a booming knock at the door announced the arrival of his Uncle Chewie and Aunt Maz. Ten years hadn’t changed a thing about either of them- Chewie was still a giant of a man, taller and with even more luxurious hair than Ben, and Maz was still a tiny little thing with a knowing smile and glasses so thick it was a wonder she saw anything at all.

They swept him along in the greetings like he’d been there every year, instead of missing for more than ten Christmases, grabbing him in hugs and handing off packages and pies for him to deal with like he hadn’t almost forgotten where everything belonged.

They made it simple, easy for him to forget about the tensions of the past and pretend that the present was all that mattered.

Chewie scooped up Rey in a hug that lifted her feet clean off the floor and made her squeal with laughter. “He’s named after me, you know?” his uncle said with a wink when he set her back down.

“Who is? Ben?”

“Yep,” he said, slinging an arm around her shoulder and turning so they faced Ben together- a pair of co conspirators in the required holiday humiliation.

Ben groaned, “Uncle Chewie, please no,” but there was no mercy in this house.

“Benjamin Chewbacca Solo,” Uncle Chewie said dramatically, wiping a pretend tear from his eye. “My namesake.”

“It must be nice,” she said quietly. “To know where your names come from, to have that connection to the family who made you.”

Chewie laughed, the sound a little too loud for even the large space of Leia’s kitchen. “Han and I go way back, but he’s only my brother by choice.”

She looked around at all of them, confusion creasing her brow.

“Yep,” Han confirmed. “I didn’t have any family growing up, so I made my own. First with Chewie here, then Leia and the kid.”

“Hmm,” Leia acknowledged, tipping her head unto her husband’s shoulder. “I was adopted when I was a baby. I had great adopted parents and then after they passed, I found Luke. We didn’t grow up together, but it filled in a missing piece for us.”

“Family comes in all shapes and sizes,” Maz told her, giving her arm a squeeze.

Maz always seemed to know what a person was thinking when she looked at them, and it didn’t surprise Ben that she had seen straight to the heart of Rey’s loneliness without having to be told.

“That’s lovely,” Rey said. “That you all found each other.”

“And you’ve found Ben and us,” Leia said happily. “So, the family’s gotten bigger again.”

Rey took another sip from her cup, turning her face away from Leia to look at him sadly. The _ pretendness  _ of it weighed bitter on his mind, wrong and unnatural. She deserved this, more than he ever had. The family and the acceptance and the unconditional love. She hadn’t let her life turn her hard and he’d let the first inconvenience of a family that didn’t fully understand him turn him brittle until he was nothing but broken shards and sharp edges.

She patted his knee, her hand warm even through the fabric of his jeans. “Ben’s lucky to have all of you,” she said. “Even if he might not always have agreed with that.”

The lilt of her voice was teasing, and it drained away all his self-recrimination. She wasn’t judging him for his mistakes, even if he _ did _ deserve it. 

He twisted the hem of her sweater in his fingers, rubbing the soft wool and wishing it was the skin that he’d hidden away beneath layers of protective warmth.

“The boy is smitten,” Maz announced with a laugh and he dropped the sweater like his fingers were burned, jumping and flushing guiltily.

“Why don’t you take Rey on a tour of the house Ben?” Leia suggested. “Show her around while we wait for Luke to show up?”

He stood up, nodding and shoving his wayward hands into his pockets. “Sure, I already promised to show her the drainpipe I used to climb down in high school.”

Leia pursed her lips, but Han laughed, good natured and unsurprised. “Wait for me before you take her out the garage. I want to be there when she sees the Falcon.”

Ben nodded his agreement as he led Rey out of the room. “I think he loves that car more than anything else in this house,” he mused.

“Except for you and your mother,” Rey said pointedly and he swallowed, shoving his hands in his pockets defensively. She had a way of calling him out on his bullshit that made him question the bitter thoughts he’d kept wrapped himself for years. 

She was wandering behind him, stopping every few feet to peer at pictures on the tables and the walls. Ones that he knew held images of him as an awkward kid with arms and legs that were too long and ears that were too big. “You were a cute kid,” she said, tracing the edge of a picture frame with her finger.

“I think that was first grade,” he said, looking over shoulder at the image of him, front teeth missing in a wide smile as he held up a bright red paper covered in dried macaroni. “I think she still has my macaroni art in a box somewhere.”

Rey nodded and turned to follow him out of the living room and up the stairs. “Some things are only valuable to mothers. No one else cares enough to keep it so if you don’t have one, it’s lost forever.”

“You don’t have any, do you? Macaroni art?”

She shook her head. “No art. No first grade pictures.”

He wanted to take pictures of her every day. Capture the way the light played across her freckles from every angle so that she never had to wonder what she’d looked like at a certain age and no part of her was lost to time again.

He didn’t say it, because this was only for pretend, but the urge lodged in his heart as he led her to the end of the hall and opened the door to his childhood bedroom.

She didn’t laugh like he expected her to, when she’d looked around and found that Han and Leia had kept everything exactly the same as it had been the day he’d left. Instead, she crossed the room, examining the leftover pieces from a boy who’d been too big and too angry and too much for one room to hold.

She stretched up on tiptoe, arms raised above her head until she was able to reach the edge of the shelf above his bed, her slender fingers wrapping around the arm of a teddy bear that was worn almost to pieces. One of the eyes wobbled and the stitching at the mouth had come undone, there were bald spots in the fur, but she tucked it carefully beneath her chin as she sat on the edge of his bed, smoothing the wrinkles in the black duvet beside her thigh as she contemplated him.

“This is a very nice teddy bear,” she said seriously. “He looks very loved.”

Ben ran his hand through his hair, loathing the idea of admitting how many years he’d hauled that bear around. “He was my favorite,” he said instead, giving her a truth that was less embarrassing.

“I always wanted one,” she mused, rubbing a bald spot absently.

“Jesus, Rey,” he said, dropping to sit on the bed beside her. “You never had a teddy bear?”

“Nope,” she said, biting her lip again. “A few over the years that I had to share with the other kids in a house, but none that I could take with me.”

He was silent, unable to think of a single thing to say in the face of her pain. He reached for her hand, thinking he could give her at least the support of a warm hand to hold but she stood up as soon as he shifted, moving away to peer out the window. His fingers flexed over the empty space that she’d left behind.

“That’s a long way down,” she said, turning back to him with a lifted eyebrow. “Did you ever fall?”

“Not that I’m willing to admit,” he said with a grin, hoping to tease her until the shadow of old sadness left her eyes.

Leia’s voice floated up the stairs, a gentle intrusion in their small bubble. “Ben? We need someone to make a quick run to the store before everything’s closed. Would you mind?”

He glanced at Rey, gauging her expression. “Are you okay here? My dad’s gonna corner you and have you digging around the hood of his car as soon as I leave.”

She grinned and handed him back his bear. “I really want to get my hands on that Falcon,” she said, and he shook his head as she turned and left the room, thumping down the stairs to find Han.

“What did you forget?” he asked Leia when he found her in the kitchen talking to Maz.

“I didn’t  _ forget _ ,” she said irritably. “Your father drank the last of the rum, and I need it for rum cake.”

He looked at his watch. It would be cutting it close if he wanted to find a store that was still open. “I’ll hurry,” he said, leaning down and kissing his mother’s cheek.

She looked around suspiciously. “Did you leave Rey with Han and Chewie?”

“She wanted to see the Falcon,” he said with a shrug.

“Hurry back,” Leia said, giving him a little shrug and rolling her eyes. “They’ll have her out there talking cars for days if you don’t save her.”

“She’d enjoy it,” he said, but he grabbed his coat from the closet and drove back into town without further urging, his car one of the only ones on the road at this time on Christmas Eve.

He grabbed the last bottle of rum from the nearest store as they were closing up but it was the little children’s boutique on the corner that had his mind whirling and he pulled up out front as the owner was hanging a closed sign in the window.

“Damn it,” Ben swore, jogging up as fast as he could on the ice-covered sidewalk. “Hey, can I get you to open back up for maybe five more minutes?” he asked desperately as he slid to a stop beside the frost covered front window.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” the man said, pushing his glasses up on his nose and looking at Ben like he’d lost his mind.

“I just need one thing,” Ben promised. “One very quick thing.”

“Sorry, I can’t help you.”

“Two hundred bucks,” Ben argued, digging in his pocket to pull his wallet out. “The thing I’m looking to grab might cost fifteen, tops, but I’ll give you two hundred.”

“I can’t,” the man hedged, but Ben sensed the uncertainty and pressed on.

“Three hundred?’

“Uh?”

“Five,” Ben said firmly, pulling out a wad of bills and holding them up. “I’ll give you five hundred bucks for five minutes of your time.”

“Okay,” the man said, turning back around and sliding the key back into the lock.

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Ben breathed, handing him the money and rushing by him to look around the dimly lit interior of the store. He knew it would be toward the back, not up front with the newer and shinier toys, and that’s where he found it.

This one wasn’t threadbare- the eyes didn’t wobble, and the mouth was still stitched perfectly with even black stitches in a wide and happy smile. He tucked the teddy bear under his arm and swept back out again, muttering another hasty thank you to the shop owner, who only shook his head in puzzled amusement, the money still clutched in his hand.

He tucked it away under the seat before he went inside, dropping the rum off for his mother in the kitchen before making his way to the garage. He found Rey with her head tucked under the hood of Han’s beloved Falcon, laughing at something that he’d arrived too late to overhear.

Han was lounging against the workbench, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows as though he had been fiddling with something beneath the hood before stepping back to make room for Rey. His eyes lit up when he spotted Ben in the doorway.

“Hey, kid,” he said gruffly. “Your girl really knows her stuff.”

Ben hummed, watching curiously as she peeked over her shoulder at him with a grin. “This car is beautiful,” she said reverently. “Your dad’s made some unique modifications in here, but I like it.”

“Yeah?” he asked, stepping up beside her and leaning down over the engine. “You should have one.”

“One what?”

“Car like this,” he said. “A project to work on.”

She laughed and wiped engine grease on her cheek. “Someday,” she agreed. “It would be nice to work on something of my own for once.”

“Maybe you should buy her one,” Han said, smiling at Rey when she popped up from beneath the hood with pink cheeks. “It would make a nice wedding gift.”

“It would,” Ben agreed. “But maybe that should wait till her birthday. I was leaning toward a house for the wedding gift. We’re thinking of moving back here, getting out of Jakku.”

Something flashed in Han’s eyes, but it was gone too quickly for Ben to figure it out. “Yeah? Your mom would really like that.”

Rey was shooting him looks that he steadfastly ignored. “We were hoping that if we did move back, mom could help Rey get a new job. Working as a mechanic for Plutt wasn’t a great start for her so maybe something a little better? Something where she could go to college if she wanted? She could still have a project car for fun, but I don’t want her busting her ass like that for pennies ever again.”

Han stroked his face, thinking. “Leia knows everyone,” he said after a moment. “I’m sure we could find something for her.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Ben said, handing Rey a rag and gesturing that she should use it to wipe the grease off her cheek.

“Come on, Chewie,” Han said, leading the way out of the garage and leaving Ben and Rey alone beside the Falcon. “Let’s go put a little bug in Leia’s ear about finding Rey a job.”

Rey waited until the door closed behind them before rounding on Ben. “You shouldn’t have done that,” she said in clipped tones, glaring up at him with her hands on her hips.

“Why? We talked about this and she’s going to help you find a job.”

“We talked about it  _ before _ ,” she corrected. “I didn’t realize how much it was going to hurt them to think that you might be moving back here and then find out that you aren’t.”

“Rey…”

“No,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t like giving them false hope.”

“They’re soulmates,” he told her, watching her bite her lip in confusion as she tried to puzzle out what that had to do with anything.

“I know,” she agreed. “I saw your Dad’s mark. He’s got a tiny little crescent moon.”

Ben nodded, hunching his shoulders. “Yeah, a tiny little crescent moon…on his forearm.”

He wanted to reach out and smooth away the little wrinkle between her brows, soothe the irritation out of her expression, but he didn’t think she’d welcome his touch right now.

“So?” she huffed. “They got lucky to find each other, luckier still to love each other so much. What does that have to do with you? With this?”

“They never needed me,” he explained. “They were always so busy with work and then each other…I was an afterthought, a third wheel in their perfect little pairing.”

“That’s bullshit,” she said bluntly, and his head snapped up. She was looking at him with barely restrained fury, her eyes ablaze with it. “Loving each other didn’t mean that they didn’t love you. That’s not how it works.”

“I…”

“You should hear how they talk about you,” she said flatly. “How they talk about what it felt like when you left and how it gutted them not to have you here. Do you think if you really loved me, that it would somehow make you love them less?”

She deflated, wrapped her arms around her middle protectively.

“That’s not how it works,” she repeated, then she turned and left, leaving him in the garage alone. 


	3. Coming Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been so much fun to write and thank you all so much for your comments. I have enjoyed every single one! I hope you all have a great holiday!

He didn’t wait in the garage for long, his determination to find her and apologize stronger than the desire to hide and lick his wounds in peace and privacy.

He’d barely spotted the sight of her retreating back as she exited the other side of the living room when the doorbell rang again. He sighed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair, turning away from following her to answer the door instead.

“I’ll get it,” he called. He would have time to talk to her, to smooth things over, before they left his parents’ house. He might as well let her cool off and save someone else a trip from the kitchen in the process since he was closest to the front door anyway.

He threw it open wide, letting in the cold and a fresh flurry of snow…and his uncle.

“Luke,” he said stiffly, stepping aside to let his mother’s twin into the house, and setting his shoulders against the quiet judgement he could already see in Luke’s blue eyes. “I’ll let them know you’re here.”

He turned and fled, leaving Luke standing alone on the rug, stamping snow off his boots, and unbuttoning his coat.

“Was that Luke?” Leia asked when he hurried back into the kitchen. She was bent over the oven, checking the progress of the rum cake.

He grunted, snatching his beer off the counter and draining the rest in one long gulp. It had gone warm and sour, but that was fitting somehow.

Rey was back in her stool at the counter and she watched him with narrowed eyes as he tossed the bottle in the trash and opened the fridge for another. He lifted the bottle at her, a mocking salute as Luke walked in.

She might have been right about everything else, but she hadn’t met Luke yet.

Leia’s smile was blinding as she hurried away from the over, the door slamming behind her, and hugged her brother. “I was starting to get worried that you were going to miss dinner,” she said, stepping back and letting Luke greet Han and Chewie. Maz waved at him from where she stood beside the stove, stirring the contents of a pot that was wafting off steam.

“Well, we’re all here now,” Han said, patting Leia’s arm and turning to smile at Rey. “I think you know everyone else already, but this is Ben’s fiancée, Rey.”

“Nice to meet you,” she mumbled, extending her hand for Luke to shake.

“Rey, this is Leia’s brother, Luke,” Han continued.

Luke shook her hand, holding it a moment longer than was necessary as he examined her face. “So, you’re the reason he finally decided to drag himself back home, huh?”

Rey pulled her hand away and tucked it into her lap, out of reach. “I’m sorry?”

Luke glanced at Ben, still standing beside the refrigerator with his beer gripped white knuckle tight. Whatever problems he’d had with his parents, Luke had always made everything worse.

“He hasn’t bothered to come home in ten years, figured you must be the reason he’s bothering now.”

“Luke,” Leia said softly, pleading as she glanced from her brother to her son’s tense form.

“That’s presumptuous,” Rey said bluntly, crossing her arms across her chest and staring at Luke.

Movement in the kitchen stopped as everyone turned to look at her. Even Maz stopped her stirring, but Rey didn’t seem to notice as she stared Luke down in his sister’s kitchen.

“How so?” he asked. “He wasn’t here and now he is.”

“Did you ask him why? Or are you just assuming?” Rey shot back.

“There’s no reason that could be good enough for what he put Han and Leia through,” Luke began, but he never got the chance to finish.

“Then that’s between him and his parents,” Rey said, cutting across the top of Luke’s words as Ben smirked into his beer. “I doubt very much that they’ll appreciate you shaming him away for another ten years instead of just being happy that he’s here this time.”

Luke looked around in surprise, having clearly not considered his blunt tactics might not be the most effective at helping ensure family harmony, and found that neither Han nor Leia was willing to jump to his defense.

He coughed and shrugged, suddenly abashed. “It is good to see you again, Ben.”

Ben glanced at Rey, who gave him a stern look in return and sighed. “You, too, Uncle Luke. It’s been…too long.”

“Yeah, it has,” Luke said shuffling his feet uncomfortably. “Having a good visit?”

“The best,” Leia said, interrupting excitedly and wrapping her arms around Ben’s middle and tucking her head against his chest. “We’re so glad he’s home, and Han says they’re thinking about moving back.”

Luke tipped his head in impressed surprise. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, looking at Rey as he spoke so the meaning carried to her, too. “Yeah, I am.”

Luke looked at Rey and smiled tentatively. “You like Chandrila better than Jakku?”

“I like everywhere better than Jakku,” she said with a grin, and the last of the tension disappeared, dispelled by her blunt fearlessness and ungrudging forgiveness.

Ben settled into watching her quietly as the last of dinner was prepared and carried to the large dining room table. She kept the conversation rolling with her quick wit and easy laughter, and she didn’t seem to mind at all being teased for her appetite as she piled her plate high with everything she’d helped Leia and Maz prepare.

It was comforting, being here with her. He’d spent so many years alone at the holidays in his big empty apartment, trying to tell himself that he preferred it that way. It was bullshit, he realized now, just as she’d said.

Not just the idea that being alone was preferable to being here, but the idea that his parents loved him less because of what they were to each other. With the space of years and Rey’s voice of reason in his mind, it was easier to see it. The way they reached for each other countless times through the meal hadn’t changed, her hand on his shoulder, his on her wrist, little reassurances, small verifications…but between those things, the way both of his parents glanced down the table to where he sat.

Checking on him, too.

Reassuring themselves that he was still there.

Verifying that it wasn’t just a dream after so long.

They loved each other, but they loved him, too. He could see it, finally, and he knew he had Rey to thank for helping him appreciate what he’d always been too stubborn to acknowledge.

When they settled into the living room after dinner to open gifts, he pretended to leave the room to go to the bathroom and darted out into the cold instead. No one noticed when he slipped back into the room and sat on the edge of the couch, shoving his hidden gift behind one of the oversized couch cushions.

Rey sat on the floor beside his legs, her back pressed against the couch as she watched the chaos that always came with handing out gifts- Han shaking every package, especially the ones that weren’t for him, and Leia chastising him and tossing wrapped boxes to the proper recipients.

He barely paid attention to everyone else opening their presents, only smiling at Rey’s excitement as she gave them the gifts she’d helped him pick out earlier in the day.

His parents gave him a book, a signed first edition copy of a volume of poetry that he’d liked as a teen, and he hugged them both, truly touched that they’d remembered after so long.

They gave Rey a soft blanket in rich blue, woven in the softest yarn he’d ever seen. She rubbed against her cheek, teary eyed, and his stomach swam sickly at the thought that they’d picked it out when he’d told them he was bringing a fiancée. They hadn’t known anything about her, so they’d gotten the kind of general gift that people get for someone they’d never met, something Bazine would have turned up her nose at and that Rey would probably cherish for the rest of her life.

She wrapped it eagerly around her shoulders, covering everything from the neck down in plush blue warmth.

“Did you bring gifts for each other?” Maz asked, curled up on the couch opposite them next to Chewie.

Rey flushed and Ben took the lead, answering with another off the cuff deception to keep his parents from getting suspicious. “Rey got me a painting for my apartment,” he explained. “She’s always telling me I need more color in my life. Too big to haul all the way here, though, so she gave it to me before we left.”

“And you? What did you get her, Ben?”

“Oh,” Rey said, laughing nervously. “I don’t really need gifts. I’m not used to all this fuss over the holidays.”

Everyone looked at Ben expectantly as he reached behind the pillow, pulling out the soft brown bear and holding it out to her. “Merry Christmas, Rey,” he said, as she looked slowly from the bear to him and back again.

“Ben,” Leia scolded. “Is that really all you got her?”

But Ben wasn’t listening, because tears were already running down Rey’s face as she took the bear from him, her fingers gentle as she plucked it from his grasp. She set it in her lap, softly touching the fur and examining the details of his stitching.

“It’s perfect,” she said quietly, her voice wet and amazed around her small sobs. “Thank you.”

“Seems like the boy knows what he’s doing,” Han said, amused as Rey leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Ben’s middle, her cheek pressed against his stomach as she squeezed him hard for one quick second before she let go and pulled back to look up at him through wet eyes, fierce and bright.

“Thank you,” she said again, and her face was so close to his that he could feel the warmth of breath on his cheeks, his lips. If he leaned down, he could know the taste of her in seconds, finally feel the warmth of her skin against his own instead of secondhand through layers of leather and wool and denim.

She sat back, cheeks flushed and eyes wide, tongue darting out to draw her lip in as she tucked it between her teeth.

His heart was pounding, and he knew,  _ he knew _ , she’d felt it, too.

“Anything for you,” he said, swallowing hard. He meant it, he realized. He’d do anything for her. Talk to his irritating uncle, move back to Chandrila, buy her a house and a car. Whatever she wanted, as long as she always looked as happy as she did right now.

“Smitten,” Maz said, and everyone laughed, even Rey as she clutched the bear to her chest, wrapping the blanket around it and settling back onto the floor as the last of the gifts were opened.

She wandered back to the kitchen afterward, good naturedly avoiding being pulled into signing off tune Christmas carols and opting to help Leia with the dishes instead. Ben followed, at least as much to get away from Chewie’s terrible rendition of ‘Jingle Bells’ as to keep close to Rey.

She was already standing at the sink, rinsing dishes and handing them to his mother so that they could be loaded into the dishwasher.

“You’re missing quite the show,” he said with a wince, rubbing his ears as Chewie hit a particularly rough note.

“Sounds like it,” she said, sharing a commiserating look with Leia, who took a plate from her hands and then scanned her arms, bare to the elbow since she had pushed her sleeves up to help clean the kitchen.

Leia sighed when she saw nothing but smooth, unmarked skin and guilt settled over him as he realized that she was looking for Rey’s mark again. She wanted him to have his soulmate, as she had been lucky enough to have hers, and he strongly suspected that Leia wanted it for other reasons, too.

They liked Rey and a soulmate connection would help ensure that the relationship between them worked out, since it was rare for soulmates to split up once they’d found each other.

He looked away, pretended that he hadn’t seen his mother looking so he didn’t have to face the disappointment he was sure he’d see in her eyes. He was disappointed, too, that Rey wasn’t his for real, for forever.

“So, Mom, do you think you might be able to help Rey find a job if we move to Chandrila?”

She perked back up at that, smiling confidently. “Of course,” she said, “there’s lots of options here for someone this smart and capable. Actually, I was thinking there’s an entry level position coming open just after the new year at Resistance, and I know it comes with tuition assistance if college is something that interests you.”

“College?”

“If you’d like,” Leia said.

“I never thought about it much before,” Rey admitted. “It just didn’t seem like a possibility when I was living with Plutt.”

“There’s no rush and no pressure,” Leia said. “But it would be there, if you wanted to go.”

“Thanks,” Rey said, her smile wobbly. “You’ve all been so sweet and helpful.”

“Mom’s always helpful,” Ben said. “Resistance is her company and it’s a nonprofit designed to assist vulnerable parts of the population. She’s dedicated her life to helping people in need.”

“And I can work there? Helping people?”

“Yes, if you want to,” Leia said. “You’ve got a big heart and I thought…”

Rey looked at him helplessly and then shrugged. “I’d love to,” she admitted, and Leia beamed.

“Good,” she said as she finished loading the dishwasher and turned it on. “The job is yours if you two decide to move here.”

“Okay,” Rey said, her voice small and tentative as Leia hugged her and went to check on Han.

Her eyes were wet again when she turned to look at him. “What are we going to do?” she asked, voice a plaintive whine. “I don’t want to disappoint her.”

“You won’t,” he said reassuringly. “At this point I think they’ll just pretend they never met me so they can keep you instead.”

“I’m serious,” she said, tugging down the sleeves of her sweater until she could wrap her fingers around the edges and tug on the knit wool.

“I know,” he admitted. She wanted him to say that this had been a mistake, that it had hit too close to home by somehow fitting exactly into the slot of what everyone wanted. She was right, that it was going to hurt them all more than he had ever anticipated when the gig was up, but he wasn’t going to call it a mistake, not when she was standing there looking like that and his whole heart had somehow ended up hers. “We’ll figure it out,” he said instead, the words hopelessly small against the obstacle they were facing.

“I hope so,” she said, sighing deep so that her whole body shuddered on the exhale.

She was quiet when they went back to the living room, curling up in her spot on the floor with the blanket and the teddy bear that he’d bought her. She’d named him Jingles, apparently, a fitting name for a Christmas gift and one that had made him laugh out loud until she’d shushed him, holding the bear protectively as she hummed along to the sound of Christmas songs on the radio.

Family stories faded away as everyone else got tired and climbed the stairs to their bedrooms, until eventually it was just the two of them, sitting in a silence that should have been awkward as they watched the flames dance in the fireplace.

He knew she wasn’t exhausted or cold or hungry and that alone made him happier than he’d been any other Christmas that he could remember.

“Do you know yet how long you’re going to stay?” she asked, shifting to look at him as the light played across her face.

“At least through tomorrow,” he said. “Maybe even New Year’s if you want to stay that long.”

She bit her lip. “You don’t have to go back to work sooner than that?”

“Not really,” he said with a shrug. “I haven’t taken a vacation in almost a decade so Snoke owes me some time. I can start looking for a place, since I’m here anyway.”

“You’re really thinking about moving back, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said, looking around at the framed pictures on the walls. “I’ve missed it more than I realized and Jakku is really just a shitty place to live. I hated it and Snoke just isn’t a good enough reason to stay anymore.”

“I’m glad,” she said, tucking her chin into her bear and smiling at him. “People deserve to have families around, you know?”

“I think I do now,” he said, and she blushed, cheeks crimson in the dimly lit room.

“So, how’d you enjoy your first real Christmas Eve?” he asked, trying to change the subject to something else and resist the urge to cup her cheek in his hand and kiss her until the embarrassment faded away from her skin.

“It was the whole package, just like your mom promised,” she said. “I can’t believe she’s going to make more food tomorrow.”

“Lots more,” he agreed. “I spotted the ham in the fridge and she’ll finally let us have some of that rum cake. Christmas is a two-day event here, so be prepared for more presents.”

“More? But we opened all of these!”

“Sure, we did, but don’t you believe in Santa Claus? There will be more presents under the tree for everyone in the morning. I don’t know when my parents manage to sneak down here in the middle of the night, but it happens every year, even for the grown-ups.”

She huffed, but she was grinning. “They really do the whole package don’t they?”

“Mmm hmm,” he agreed. “You’ll get the full experience. Every Christmas tradition.”

“Even the mistletoe?” she asked, jerking her chin toward the little bunch of green leaves hanging in the doorway.

Leia hung it there every year, getting one sweet kiss from Han when she did, and then they all promptly forgot about it until it was time to take the decorations down.

“You know something?” he asked. “I’ve never kissed anyone under the mistletoe, either.”

“Really?” She peeked up at him, grin mischievous, before she hopped to her feet and backed across the room. “Well, you promised me the full experience, so I guess you’ll have to try this one yourself.”

He swallowed as he watched her come to a stop in the doorway, a teasing smile on her lips. She seemed serious about wanting to do it and he stood up slowly, walking across the room with measured steps so she didn’t change her mind before he could get to her.

Had he ever been this nervous about kissing a girl before? He didn’t think so, not even the first time when it had been all hurried and furtive, a soft press of lips before a burst of teenage laughter.

This was a different kind of nervous, the serious kind, the kind that set bubbles of lust to run beneath the surface of his skin as he looked down at her. She was chewing her lip when he stopped in front of her, close enough that he could feel her heat where her chest nearly touched his own.

She was watching his face, her eyes wide and restless as she watched him for a reaction. He smiled and placed one hand gently on either of her hips, holding her in place as he bunched her sweater into his grip.

She smiled back, relaxing a little and bringing both her hands up to rest on his chest. “Thank you for letting me be your fake fiancée,” she said, “and for kissing me under the mistletoe like this is one of those sappy Christmas movies with a happy ending.”

“Maybe it is one of those sappy Christmas movies with a happy ending,” he told her, leaning down as she stretched up on tip toe to meet him until his lips met hers, the barest chaste brush of skin to skin. Her mouth was warm and soft, but the shock of her touch zipped through him like a lightning bolt, running from his lips and down his neck to nestle someplace near his heart.

“What the hell?” she yelped, jumping back and pressing her hand to her mouth.

“I…I don’t know,” he stammered, rubbing the sore spot beneath his collar bone. “I’m sorry.”

“Did it hurt you?” she asked, as she rubbed her own chest, eyeing him warily.

“Not exactly,” he said, struggling to describe the feeling. “Just a shock.”

“Me, too,” she agreed. “Maybe you should let me look at your chest, just in case.”

“Okay,” he agreed, letting her hands skim up his midriff as she lifted his shirt and wishing it was for a less practical reason.

She lifted his sweater until the aching spot on his skin was exposed to the cool air and then stopped, staring open mouthed at his chest.

“Ben?” she asked, voice trembling and breathy. “Has this always been here?”

“What?”

“This,” she said again, fingers splaying out across his skin, her touch warm and soothing over the last echoes of pain. “It’s…it’s a little star.”

“No?” he said, trying to pull his shirt aside so he could see, but she dropped it back down and started pulling up the hem of her own sweater. “Rey?”

“Look at me,” she said breathlessly, pulling her sweater up and revealing the smooth expanse of her stomach and a white lace bra that he was sure he’d paid for earlier that day. He could see the pink of her nipples through the lace.

“I’m looking,” he said, and she swatted his arm at the lustful tone.

“No,” she said, pointing to the spot on her chest that she’d been rubbing. “Look  _ here _ . What do you see?”

The skin was pink from her hands pressing on it, but there was no mistaking the small outline of a star on her skin. It looked very much like the one sitting prettily on top of his parents’ Christmas tree.

“It looks like a soulmate mark,” he said dully. “You didn’t tell me you that you had a soulmate.”

“I didn’t,” she said huffily, pulling her shirt down. “I mean if that’s even what it is. It’s too high, too close to my heart. It’s unheard of.”

“You didn’t? So that just showed up…”

“Just now,” she said. “The same time as yours did.”

He touched his chest, the spot that still tingled was in the same place as her mark. “But I’ve touched you…before…” he trailed off, thinking back over the time he’d spent with her.

He’d touched her, yes, but it was winter and cold out. Every touch had been through a coat or a sweater, a thick blanket or a layer of leather gloves.

“I hadn't,” he admitted, stunned. “I hadn’t really touched you until just now.”

“You’re my soulmate,” she said, tugging his shirt back up to see his mark again. “I have a soulmate.”

“Are you…upset that it’s me?”

She dropped his sweater, straightening up to her full height and staring at him. “Are  _ you _ upset that it’s  _ me _ ?”

“No,” he said, taking a chance and grabbing her by the hips again, this time letting his thumbs slide under her shirt to caress the skin beneath. “I can’t fucking believe I got so lucky.”

“I wanted it to be real,” she admitted. “I wanted it all to be real so much.”

She stretched up on tiptoe again and this time when his lips met hers there was nothing but the wonderful revelation that he had really come home. Her mouth. was soft and giving, moving beneath his with warmth and acceptance as she clung to him.

“Stay with me,” he urged when he finally let go of her enough to let her breathe, his face nuzzling into the soft skin of her neck. “Marry me for real.”

“I won’t go back to Jakku,” she said, pulling back and giving him a stern look. “ _ You _ stay with  _ me _ .”

“Fuck my job,” he agreed. “You can stay here and work for my mom. I have a lot of money and I’ll buy you a house. I’ll buy you a house  _ tomorrow  _ if you want one and I’ll bring you here for every Christmas.”

He knew he was rambling, that half of what he was saying probably didn’t even make sense, but all he could think about was reassuring her that she was the only thing he cared about, and he’d do anything at all to get her to stay.

“Ben…”

“And every Easter,” he continued, kissing the corner of her mouth.

“Ben…”

“And Valentine’s day,” he said, and kissed the other corner, now turned up in a happy smile.

“Ben…”

“Not done yet,” he murmured, pressing a new kiss to some part of her face for holiday he’d be willing to endure his parents’ house. “There’s still the Fourth of July…Thanksgiving…St Patrick’s Day.”

“Ben,” she huffed. “I’ll stay with you.”

“And?”

“And I’ll marry you for real,” she said.

“I’ll get Grandma Padme’s ring,” he promised, because he knew she’d want that more than something store bought, no matter how many karats he could afford to get her. “We’ll tell my mom that you liked the sentimentality and I agreed to take the other one back.”

“Ben?”

“Mmm hmm?”

She trembled, small and uncertain as he held her. “I love you,” she said quietly, the words bigger somehow than agreeing to marry him and make real that which had been pretend.

He’d known that she loved him already, somehow. And maybe he’d loved her, too, since the first second he’d heard her voice. Had he been born already loving her? Is that what it meant to have a soulmate? It felt like it to him, because seeing her mark hadn’t changed the feelings that he’d held for her since the moment she’d crossed his path on that snowy train platform.

“I love you, too,” he said, kissing her again so she'd know he meant it.

“How are we going to explain to your family that we’re soulmates now?” she asked several minutes later, when he’d stopped kissing her long enough to tuck her on the couch beside him under the blue blanket his mother had given her for Christmas.

“We never actually told them we  _ weren’t _ soulmates,” he said, tracing lazy patterns on the back of her hand with his thumb just to watch the skin on her arm raise goosebumps to respond to his touch. “I’ve got an idea.”

***

Christmas morning dawned cold and bright, the sunlight glinting off freshly fallen snow.

Ben woke to the sounds of Leia cooking breakfast downstairs and buried his face in the sweet smell of Rey’s hair. She was curled up beside him in his bed, her head resting on his arm.

He was afraid she’d wake up confused, maybe even regretful that so much in her life had changed so quickly, but when she opened her eyes there was nothing in her expression but happiness and love.

“Ready to face Leia?” he asked, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose.

“I’m ready to start our lives together,” she corrected. “But, yes, the first step is Leia.”

She got up and dressed quickly, tossing on a comfortable pair of black leggings and an oversized blue sweater that she’d picked out the day before. The color suited her, but it was the asymmetrical neckline, dipping low off one shoulder, that made it a perfect choice.

Her mark, the small star that lay closer to her heart than any soulmate mark he’d ever heard of, was clearly visible. He kissed it, and her, before she pulled him downstairs for breakfast.

They didn’t say anything when they walked into the kitchen together, hand in hand. Rey sat at her spot at the counter, mumbling quiet morning greetings as Leia hastily handed over cups of coffee and huffed over the amount of work she’d have to do to get Christmas dinner on the table.

“I’ll need to start as soon as everyone’s done opening their gifts from Santa,” Leia said. “We might have to wake the others if the smell of bacon doesn’t draw them downstairs soon.”

“I can help,” Rey reminded her. “Ben, too.”

“That’s very nice of…” Leia stopped, frozen between the fridge and the sink with a half full cup of coffee dangling forgotten in one hand.

“Mom?” Ben asks, amused at her stunned expression.

“Is… is that?”

Before either of them could answer, Han walked into the kitchen, his face puzzled when he spotted Leia, still standing as though suspended in time.

“Leia?”

She snapped her eyes to his, grabbing him and turning him around so he could see Rey where she sat, sloshing coffee over the rim of her cup in the process.

“Do you see that?” she asked, finally setting the cup down with shaking fingers.

“It’s Rey’s soulmate mark,” Ben said proudly, like he’d put it there himself on purpose.

Han whistled and wrapped an arm around Leia as she sniffled against his chest. “I’ve never seen anything like that, kid. You two must have been made just for each other.”

“You didn’t even tell me she was your soulmate,” Leia said, stepping away from Han to embrace Ben and then Rey.

“You never asked,” Ben said reasonably. “Besides, you already loved her anyway.”

“We did,” Leia agreed. “I always wanted a daughter.”

“You’ve got one,” Ben told her. “I’m not going back to Jakku. We’re going to buy a house in Chandrila as soon as we can.”

“I’d really like that job,” Rey said with a smile. “If it’s still available.”

“Of course, it is,” Leia said. “You’re going to do so well at Resistance.”

“This is the best Christmas gift you could have given us,” Han said. “All we ever wanted was for you to come home.”

“I came home when I met Rey,” Ben told him honestly, wrapping his arms around his very real and not at all pretend fiancée. “She brought me the rest of the way back to you.”


End file.
